


Falling Asleep

by TweekTweak



Series: Waking Up Alive [2]
Category: South Park
Genre: Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-18 20:36:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7329820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TweekTweak/pseuds/TweekTweak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“He fucking loves you dude, or are you blind as well as stupid?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling Asleep

**Author's Note:**

> This is a short sequel to my fic 'Waking Up Alive', carrying on from Craig's suicide attempt at the end. If you're an angsty little fucker and want Craig to stay dead then this fic is not for you, but why would anyone want that?

I clutch my head and close the eyes that burn as soon as I open them. The beams of light that have snuck through the gaps in the blinds suggest that it’s around midday, although what day it’s the middle of I can’t say. How long was I asleep? Was I even sleeping? My head feels heavy, fuzzy, like it’s been stuffed full of cotton wool.

I roll onto my side and right into a pool of congealing vomit. If I had anything left in my stomach I might have been sick again. Wiping a trail of it from my cheek, I slide out of bed and steady myself against the bedside table when I stagger slightly.

Unstable on my feet, I kick several pill bottles out of my way as I stumble across my bedroom.

In the kitchen I fetch myself a glass of lukewarm tap water to try and rid my mouth of the sickly, bitter taste of stomach acids and vodka, and clear my head of the weight it’s holding up. My throat burns when I swallow, feeling raw as if I’ve swallowed shards of broken glass.

I don’t feel particularly _ill_ , surprisingly. Maybe this is because of the sheer amount of pain relief medication I swallowed, or maybe because I threw it all right back up again. Sick, scared, screaming out for the help that I thought had come.

My flat’s empty though, and quiet – almost eerily so. There’s no background noise of canned laughter on TV or the kettle boiling. Tweek’s absence is more noticeable than I could ever have imagined it would be. Part of my wants to call him and apologise, but my phone is still lying broken on the kitchen floor. I pick it up and sit it down on the unit.

Dragging myself through to the bathroom, I collapse in a heap on the cold shower floor, turning on the hot water and letting it wash over me. I sit there for what could be hours, but don’t touch the shower gel or eucalyptus shampoo, and instead just focus on the sound of running water and the burn as it hits my pale skin, desperately trying to kick my dull senses back to life.

I still feel dirty when I eventually turn the water off.

After dressing myself in some clothes I find on my bedroom floor, I strip the bed of the dirty sheets and pick up the empty tablet foils and bottles. After I spray the room with about half a can of Lynx, you’d never know what had happened hours before. Perfect.

xxxxx

Someone knocks the front door, and when I don’t answer they persist, slamming a fist against the door ever more impatiently until I relent and open it.

The visitor stares at me stony faced for a minute, before I eventually break the silence with a reluctant, “Hi, Clyde.” My voice comes out a little scratchy, my throat still aching from all the screaming and crying and throwing up.

“Craig,” he answers curtly, “Alive, I see?”

My lip curls a little, and Clyde noticeably realises what he said.

 “Shit, fuck, I didn’t mean that like- Never mind, Tweek asked me to come round here. I came the other night but you wouldn’t answer the fucking door. And then he got that text you sent him and-”

“Oh, it was you that just about took the thing off its hinges?”

“I- Yeah, sorry about that,” he rubs the back of his neck apologetically. “Can I come in?”

“I suppose.”

I step aside and he walks into the flat. He takes a seat on one of the sofas in the living room and I make a point of sitting on the other one as far away from him as possible.

“How are you?” Clyde asks.

“Just dandy,” I grumble and he raises an eyebrow.

“What’s wrong with your voice?”

“Nothing,” I reply, not quite able to mask the croakiness yet.

“You didn’t, um, try anything stupid again did you?” Clyde frowns, evidently uncomfortable. “Tweek told us you got pretty wound up yesterday and he was worried that-”

I close my eyes, thinking back to the way I’d treated Tweek; kind, gentle Tweek who was just trying to help. And how did I repay him?

“Craig?”

My breathing shakes a little.

I feel the couch dip as Clyde moves to sit beside me. I open my eyes and he looks a little uncertain. Comforting others wasn’t his forte; he was almost as blunt and rough and awkward as me, but he seemed to be making an effort. I feel him gently place a hand on my shoulder. “Um, Tweek’s sitting in my car outside if you want to see him? He wasn’t sure…”

Part of me doesn’t believe that Tweek would even want to step foot in my shitty little flat after the way I treated him, let alone see me.

“He wouldn’t be here if he didn’t,” Clyde tells me when I voice this opinion, “He fucking loves you dude, or are you blind as well as stupid?” The supportive hand is removed, and the Clyde I’m used to is back. He folds his arms. “If he didn’t care he would have let you rot here in your own self-pity. He wouldn’t have moved himself in to look after you, or taken you to your appointment, or stopped you from fucking drinking yourself to death. And he certainly wouldn’t be back here after the way you treated him. He _loves_ you! But I know, and you probably know, and I think deep down even he knows that he can’t wait for you forever.”

I chew my lower lip. What would Tweek say if he found out what I did after he left? He isn’t stupid, I know that much; he’s nervous and twitchy, but he’s intuitive and somehow he can read me like an open book. He’d probably take one step into the flat and work it out.

“Well?”

“Fuck,” I say, “Alright.”

xxxxx

“Craig.”

Tweek’s voice is quiet, but he sounds more sure than I feel.

He sits down beside me. I don’t look up at him, too ashamed of myself to meet his gaze through my blurring vision.

“How are you?”

I don’t answer his question. “I’m sorry,” I say instead, feeling my breath hitch in my chest, “Fuck, Tweek, I’m so sorry.”

“I know,” he replies, “Craig look at me. Look at me.”

I tear my eyes away from the floor to face the man sitting beside me. He looks older than he did only yesterday and it pains me, and I want to apologise, and I want to tell him to get out before I hurt him again, and then his lips are on mine.

Only then do I finally start crying, and I think maybe Tweek does too. It’s warm and wet and full of pain, but Tweek tastes like toothpaste and safety and home. And he doesn’t seem to mind when I clutch onto him tightly and stain his shirt with tears; instead he just holds me for what feels like hours, gently rocking me until I finally stop crying.

“What happened when I left?” he asks me softly.

I sniffle a little, knowing that a truthful answer will hurt him, but a lie would probably hurt even more. And so I tell him, the look on his face crushing me inside. I expect him to shout at me, to cry some more, to tell me I’m a stupid fucker. A straight up punch to the face would probably hurt less than what the sad look on his face is currently doing to me.

For a minute I don’t think he’s going to react at all. In the end he just kisses me again, harder than before.

“Fuck, you’re an idiot,” Tweek sighs, but there’s no malice in his words. “How would I live without you, Craig?”

Privately I feel that his life would be better without me in the picture, but I don’t think now is really the time, so I make do with pulling him in closer to me, shuffling a little so that we can both lie on the sofa. Tweek kicks off his trainers and snuggles in, lying half on top of me and staring at me intently with his shiny green eyes. I tuck a stray lock of his blond hair behind his ear.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him again, and he nods, wordlessly, placing a small kiss on my forehead before burying his face into the crook of my neck.

“I love you, Craig,” he says.

“I love you too.”

In time we both fall asleep.


End file.
